And Now For Something Entirely Different

We've had yet another amazing day at Hot Springs, very conscious now of Thursday being departure day.  Makes everything slow down and become more 'present' somehow.

But since I don't really want to think about that....thought I'd just relay two fun stories.

Got called over with some urgency to the baptismal pool yesterday morning, before people started to arrive.  The children were dismayed and wanted to show me that it looked like a dog had done his business in the pool.  Sure enough, floating there was a fair-sized portion of, um, doggy doo.

I expressed my own dismay and horror, and indicated with some energy, the need to get that out of there!  Quick, find a stick!  Call Ahjahn Suradet!  We're definitely going to need to drain the pool and fill it up again, but do we have time?  Yuck!  Apparently, my reaction was quite amusing, since the children were laughing so hard.

That's when Fruk calmly reached in and scooped out the offensive floater with his bare hands.  Bigger reaction from Ahjahn Ruth.  More laughing.  And then Fruk couldn't in good conscience torment me any longer and revealed the truth.  Fake poo.

Fake poo?  Where does a rural Thai boy get fake poo?

I didn't take a picture.  You're welcome.

Second story.

It was market night and usually what works best is to do supper in Chiang Mai first.  We'd been promised pizza, but when the first place ended up being take out only, we made our way to one of Chiang Mai's newest and biggest malls.  I'm talking six stories high.  Of course this modern facility comes complete with escalators, which, for some rural Thais are novel at best and terrifying at worst.  Suradet tells me his father, a mountain man (some eight hour drive away), refuses to set foot on one.

Suradet himself is comfortable enough in the city.  He was born in the same village where his parents still live.  But living now just 45 minutes out of Chiang Mai, he's been exposed to all the conveniences of modern life.  Except maybe he isn't as experienced on escalators as he first let on.

We were looking for a bathroom and had decided it was one floor down.  Suradet led the way and had just got on the escalator when Yupa realized that, no, there was a bathroom just over there on the floor we were on currently.   The rest of us had not yet stepped on the escalator.

Suradet, on his way down looked up, eyes wide.  He had a split-second decision to make.  Do I continue to go down and come back up, or am I still close enough to come back up the cascading downward stairs? 

To me he was too far gone.  No question, I would have done the circuit.  Not Suradet.  He decided to go for it.  Chugging bravely against the flow, he high-stepped his way back up to the top.  Big smile and a 'tada' kind of expression when he got there.  Except, Yupa and Bao had hurried away, not wanting anyone to know that this guy was with them.  A few onlookers did indeed seem rather unimpressed. 

I so wish I had a video.  Honestly, it was hilarious. It's these kinds of unexpected joyful moments that make the memories and make us family.

I warned him that this was too fun a story not to share with Highview.  And now I have :).